“People who try to explain pictures are usually barking up the wrong tree.”

Quoted in Picasso on Art (1988), ed. Dore Ashton.
Attributed from posthumous publications

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 29, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "People who try to explain pictures are usually barking up the wrong tree." by Pablo Picasso?
Pablo Picasso photo
Pablo Picasso 128
Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stag… 1881–1973

Related quotes

Robert M. Sapolsky photo

“This is not seeing the trees instead of the forest, this is seeing the bark on the trees, this very concreteness.”

Robert M. Sapolsky (1957) American endocrinologist

Emperor Has No Clothes Award acceptance speech (2003)
Context: Schizophrenics have a whole lot of trouble telling the level of abstraction of a story. They're always biased in the direction of interpreting things more concretely than is actually the case. You would take a schizopohrenic and say, "Okay, what do apples, bananas and oranges have in common?" and they would say, "They all are multi-syllabic words."
You say "Well, that's true. Do they have anything else in common?" and they say, "Yes, they actually all contain letters that form closed loops."
This is not seeing the trees instead of the forest, this is seeing the bark on the trees, this very concreteness.

Jack Kerouac photo

“The tree looks like a dog, barking at heaven.”

Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) American writer

Book of Haikus (2003)

Fernand Léger photo
Miguel de Unamuno photo

“For the truth is that our doctrines are usually only the justification a posteriori of our conduct, or else they are our way of trying to explain that conduct to ourselves.”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), VI : In the Depths of the Abyss

Sherrilyn Kenyon photo

“You woke up on the wrong side of the oak tree, didn’t you? (Acheron)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Acheron

Byron Katie photo

“Arguing with reality is like trying to teach a cat to bark—hopeless.”

Byron Katie (1942) American spiritual writer

Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life (2002)

Sister Souljah photo
Jane Jacobs photo

“To science, not even the bark of a tree or a drop of pond water is dull or a handful of dirt banal. They all arouse awe and wonder.”

Source: Dark Age Ahead (2004), Chapter Four, Science Abandoned, p. 64-65

Cub Swanson photo

“People are more dangerous when they're calm. When they're loud and aggressive that's usually an act and usually trying to compensate.”

Cub Swanson (1983) American mixed martial artist

Swanson on why he does not trash talk http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vIIidAFxBpc/U8qVoWgNv1I/AAAAAAAAW4U/B8eZnJ5rZ-E/s1600/cub+swanson+ufc.PNG

John Muir photo

“The wrongs done to trees, wrongs of every sort, are done in the darkness of ignorance and unbelief, for when the light comes, the heart of the people is always right.”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

about 1900, page 429
John of the Mountains, 1938

Related topics